Long Hollow Missions and Orphan Care

Filed under Uganda …

We finished strong today! We had 252 people come through the clinic today. That gives us just over 900 people treated for the week! Over 230 tooth extractions were performed, and the team prescribed nearly 200 pairs of glasses.
We can’t believe it is already time to head back. It seems like we just got here. So many stories in such a short time, I can’t even list all of the life change we witnessed. Thank you for all of your support and prayers. We can’t wait to come back and share what Christ is doing in Uganda!

We have had a great week. The travel was crazy as our “Heathrow Express” broke Down with us on it in London and we barely made our flight to Uganda. There was a lot of running and begging the airline attendant involved!

The clinic-
We were surprised to hear that the LC5 (governor of our region here) was coming to visit our clinic on Saturday. After his visit we heard from his boss (the vise-president of Uganda!) that he wanted to do a ribbon cutting ceremony on Monday with us! It was huge. There were multiple tv and newspaper journalists that showed up and interviewed us. We were interviewed on camera for the national news. The vice president was very nice and went through our clinic along with his staff and security detail (We diagnosed him with diabetes, so everyone on his staff wanted a glucose check!)

As far as operations, since we started clinic we have seen over 400 people! We are averaging 160 people per day which includes medical,dental, and vision for every person. We brought 2 children in today that were basically comatose. After IV fluids, meds and lots of care they were both smiling and awake when they left. So many stories of life change, this post would go on for pages. Keep praying for us, exciting things are happening here!

Hilman Mann, a Long Hollow member, has given two months of his Summer to service in Uganda. Here he gives a detailed account of what a week looks like in Mbira, Uganda. Grace Christian school in Mbira, Uganda is supported by Long Hollow’s Love a Lot program and is a product of the Crazy Love offering. Enjoy learning more about our giving at work!

Sunday:
Church starts at 10:30AM and usually lets out at 1:30PM. The seats aren’t soft, but no one seems to mind. It’s 90 minutes of praise and worship, 60 minutes of preaching (with translation), and 30 minutes of testimonies. In the left-hand picture, Pastor JJ is on the right; Ben, who translates to English is on the left. It’s a full house, as usual on Sunday morning!

Sunday Afternoon: It’s time for football! Soccer that is! The school is in red jerseys with white striping. For reasons of their own, barefoot is preferred to shoes here. Ben serves as referee, too. He is on the far right with the whistle and says all he needs now is a red card. The game goes on until dark. Here’s the Ugandan sandlot version of a free kick. Notice the ‘wall’ wisely faces away from the kicker (red shirt/black shorts), who in this case was just fouled and is looking for some serious pay-backs. The girls play a slightly different game. It seems to be a variant of dodge-ball, with a very hard ball of wound bags or banana leaves. The girl in the middle (pink skirt/black shirt) must avoid being pegged by the two throwers (blue shirts)on either end. And they throw hard! Ouch!

Week Days: Each day starts around sunrise, or whenever the rooster decides it’s time to rise and shine. Near the equator, sun-up/down is about the same year ‘round ~7A/7P. There’s no doubt when the students get up, you can hear the excited chatter and laughter all over the grounds.

Morning Assembly & Chapel Service:
Weekday mornings at 8am, the students assemble to sing the Ugandan National Anthem and then have chapel service/bible study.

Breakfast:
Breakfast is at about 10Am. It is a large serving of posho (pō-shō), which is basically a very fine grain form of grits. He’s squinting because of the sun, not the food. 🙂

Technically, GCS is a ‘boarding school’. But the reality is, the boarders are orphans. They have no parents, and most often have been rescued off the street. Every boarder has someone, somewhere that is their legal guardian and they usually go to stay with them on holidays. However, in some cases the guardian conditions are not very ‘wholesome’ or perhaps even dangerous. So, a handful of the students may seldom, if ever leave the school. Still, it is important that most go to visit their guardians on holidays so the school maintains its boarding school status. The day-students walk to school each day from nearby villages.

Please keep up with the Love a Lot blog as we continue to share information from Hillman’s trip. We are excited to give a glimpse into everyday life at our home in Uganda.

This is a big day for those of us who claim Jesus as savior. It’s the day when we celebrate sacrifice, glory, salvation and grace.

This year our church has added a very special element to our Easter celebration. The Rescue.

The Rescue encompasses everything that Easter represents. The Rescue is our way of responding to the Grace we have been shown through the death and resurrection of Christ. The Rescue boldly proclaims that without Christ we have nothing. We have been rescued from our sin and we can only respond in obedience; sharing the news of Jesus Christ… reaching those who are enslaved or persecuted and protecting the most innocent and vulnerable people in our world.

God loves them. His heart breaks for them.

As should ours.

I pray that as a church we show up in big ways this Easter. I pray that we can take a stand against the wicked acts of the world. When you prepare your heart for giving this Easter weekend please remember that your gift, your act of worship, will extend far beyond the walls of this church.

We have been doing clinic in Mbira Uganda for two days now. We have been able to care for many elderly villagers, 32 of our orphan children and 100 church and community members who wouldn’t have access to medical care without the team. We begin wide-scale village clinic tomorrow and expect to see about 400 more people over the next three days. We have been blessed with good health and energy, keep praying!

Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples. Psalm 96:3

It was an honor to get to live Psalm 96:3 out during my time in Uganda, Africa. We set out
on July 4th. As I thought about the Freedom that was brought to America so long ago, and
the trip that lay before me, I couldn’t help but think about the freedom that God brought to
the World through Christ. This freedom is what compelled me to GO and “declare his Glory”
to the people of Uganda.

It didn’t take long before I fell in love with the precious people of Uganda. Our team
had the honor of staying at the orphanage in Mbira that Global Orphan Project and Long
Hollow supports. One of my favorite parts of the trip was loving and building relationships
with the girls in the orphanage. They spoke great English, and loved just hanging out with us.
We met every night by candlelight for devotions. We laughed, danced, sang to the Lord, and
shared our stories of how God has saved us. Every night different girls would pass me a
letter before I walked out. These letters were precious and heartfelt. They appreciated us
coming to show them love. We came to love them, and in return they loved on us too. All of
these girls are orphans, but all of the these girls have been rescued by God.

We also had the honor of visiting the baby orphanage in Uganda. The precious babies there
stole my heart. When we rolled up, they came crawling, walking, and some running to our
van. One girl was crying, so I picked her up. She started to cry even harder at ﬁrst, but
then she settled down, and wouldn’t leave my arms. Her name was Priscilla. Needless to say,
I fell in love. She was shy at ﬁrst, but then I found the tickle spot, her feet. After that, she was
all smiles and giggles, I can still hear her contagious, sweet laugh. All of these babies are
orphans, but all of these babies have been rescued by God.

We also had the honor of doing VBS at another orphanage down the road in a town called
Kyotera. There are lots of boys and girls here. Amongst all of them, the same two beautiful
girls kept hanging out with me, and holding onto me. They stole my heart. After many hugs,
laughs, and I love you’s, we had to say goodbye. This is where it broke me, one of the girls
that was clinching onto me, whispered in my ear, “Let me Pray for you”, and she bowed her
head and did just that. Wow, she was an orphan praying for me, but she was an orphan that
had been rescued by God.

I can’t help but be reminded when I have the honor to interact with orphans, that I am much
like them. I was once an orphan, far from God and living for myself, and He rescued me out
of darkness into His incredible Light. His rescue in our lives declares us orphaned no longer!

“ God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.” Galatians 4:5

We challenged the people of Uganda, those that have been rescued by God, to
be a light to their community, to share Jesus with all those around them. I want to
also take this challenge as I live life in my town of Tennessee. I love the words to
Brandon Heath’s song, “Give me Your Eyes”:

Give me your eyes for just one second Give me your eyes so I can see Everything that I keep missing Give me your love for humanity Give me your arms for the broken hearted Ones that are far beyond my reach. Give me your heart for the ones forgotten Give me your eyes so I can see Lord- Give us YOUR eyes for those around us, may you rescue all those who are orphaned and bring them your freedom.

You’ve probably heard it a million times. “You go to help them, but in the end they help you.” A cliche statement. The more you hear a statement like that, the more you want to vomit.

The weekend before I left for Uganda, I proposed to my fiancé Sarah. The week after that proposal was filled with dinners, surprise parties, and a whole lot of social events that clouded my mind. It really seemed like the enemy had used the best event in my life to distract me from what I was preparing to do in Uganda. By the time the trip came around I really just didn’t want to go. Yep. I said it. After being blessed with the ability to go. I, Daniel Hobbs, was thinking,” it’s just not the best time to go…”

At one of the parties I went to, I sat down to talk with an uncle that I look up to very much. He is a successful businessman, a hard worker, but I don’t consider him a very strong christian. Sure, he believes in God, but he doesn’t practice faith. I started talking to him about Sarah, our plans, etc… and when I told him about my 3rd trip to Africa he said something that got to me. He said, ” You know, those people need help, but you gotta start thinking about yourself and your family.” And he went on to give me more advice, but that killed me. It stuck with me.

I know that he doesn’t fully understand why i do what I do. I know he thinks I am crazy for working at a church. That doesn’t mean I don’t love him. That doesn’t mean I won’t listen to his advice anymore. It just makes me realize the disconnect in those who haven’t been on a trip, or don’t understand the necessity of sending people. They don’t understand what makes us travel for 24 straight hours or go without a shower for 10days. They haven’t traveled on a bus packed with other loonies and luggage to go see a bunch of orphan kids that speak English you can barely understand.

It is hard to explain these things to someone who hasn’t been on a mission trip, because when you come back, you usually talk about the parts of the trip where you were struggling. You talk about using the restroom in a hole with flies and mosquitoes flying up out of it. You talk about eating weird things, and making sure you don’t drink the water. You talk about getting a crazy equator sunburn, and 12 hour bus rides on a seat that feels like a few metal bars and cardboard taped together.

Those are the things you talk about.

You forget to talk about the other things. The things like 14 year old boys telling you that you should be a pastor, when they can quote scripture from books you forgot existed in the Bible. You forget to talk about how the elderly, known as JaJas in Uganda, got down on their knees in thankfulness and pure joy when you brought them a couple dollars in sugar and soap. You don’t tell them about the orphanage in Kyoterea, that is truly a beacon of light in a very dark place. You forget to talk about the things you saw, where you knew God’s direct hand was working like you’ve never seen it before.

God gave me an interest in photography and travel. I am definitely an amateur at both, but I want to use them to tell the story of what God can do. The tale of what He is doing with a Kick-boxing Champion/disk jockey, turned Ugandan preacher, known as “Pastor JJ”. Of what God can do with a group of orphan boys and girls in the middle of nowhere in Africa. Or the story of what He can do with me, a clueless, graphic designer, from Tennessee. I want to do this in faith. I believe God can use us just the way He intended to when he created us.

Spend some time looking at the pictures posted here. Try to see through the eyes of the people within those photos. And last, but most importantly, ask God what He is asking you to do when it comes to Uganda.

God is working there and He wants you to be a part of it.

So, I’ll end with this. I went to Uganda thinking I would be helping them, but so far every time I go back, the experience and relationships I build there help me more than I could ever imagine. Please, don’t vomit.

Well, last night I had to decide just how badly I wanted a shower. Did I want one enough to risk electrocution? Ummm…yes. So I boldly stood in the outdoor open air shower stall, with a portable shower head hung on the wall, with it’s flexible metal hose hanging in a water barrel that had been filled, jug by jug, with cold well water.

Now all I had to do was hook it up…meaning take the metal clamp that was attached to the battery (IN the shower stall!) and hook it to the exposed red wire. This brave deed would lead to a sharp spark and then would commence the water flowing from the barrel to the shower head.

Well, after facing my fear of “shock” and holding my breath, I bravely connected the clamp. SPARK!!! And that was it. The battery hummed. But no water flowed. Looks like the portable shower has quit working.

Well, everybody ought to take a cup bath with cold water every now and then. It makes you appreciate what you have at home. Oh, and be sure not to get the water in your eyes, it could make you sick. And then for extra fun just stand around in the cool night air with your long wet hair plastered to your back. Reminds you of how much we rely on electricity and running water.

I’ve decided being clean is just so American. I’m going native. Dirt never hurt anybody.